Mary Jane's Gourmet Dairy-free Peppermint Mocha Ice Cream

Mary Jane and I are both lactose intolerant. Mary Jane is so much so that she cannot have ice cream, even with medicine. There are a few dairy-free ice cream options in our grocer's freezer, but not very many, and they're not Mary Jane's favorite. Because of this, we were given an ice cream freezer with the intention of making dairy-free ice cream at home. We were very surprised to find very few truly dairy-free ice cream recipes online, and most of them involve tofu. Yuck. The first summer we attempted to come up with our own dairy-free ice cream recipe, the consistency of the ice cream was very runny and it pretty much became a rock during storage in the refrigerator freezer. This summer, however, Mary Jane hit the jackpot! Introducing Mary Jane's Gourmet Dairy-free Peppermint Mocha Ice Cream:

5 eggs
1 16 oz. container of Coffee Mate peppermint mocha coffee creamer
green food coloring

Beat eggs together until smooth. Heat creamer on stove over medium heat until it coats the spoon. Add creamer to eggs slowly (to keep from cooking the eggs with the heated creamer). Return mixture to stove until mixture coats the spoon. Add a couple drops of green food coloring. Freeze in ice cream freezer, following your ice cream freezer's directions.

We were pleasantly surprised at how smooth this recipe is. We have now made it twice and have had good luck with it both times. Because our other recipes had been more runny, the ice cream freezer never stopped and we had to stop it ourselves. We also stopped the ice cream freezer prematurely the first time we made this new recipe because of this. It was a little runny when we ate some right out of the ice cream freezer, but what we put in the refrigerator freezer and ate later was as smooth and solid as commercial brand ice cream. The second time, we let the ice cream freezer run until it stopped itself and the ice cream was fairly solid right away (as solid as homemade ice cream ever is). We also added white chocolate chips and marshmallows for fun.

Theoretically, any flavored creamer will yield the same good consistency. You could also add a little sugar to taste, but I preferred the second batch when no extra sugar was added (the creamer is already sweet).

Homemade ice cream always helps make summer a little better, in my opinion. I hope you enjoy this dairy-free option.